


Fever Pitch

by EatYourSparkOut



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Frottage, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Oral Sex, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Possessive Behavior, Power Imbalance, Rough Sex, Sex Pollen, Sticky Sexual Interfacing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-26
Updated: 2020-03-26
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:08:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23335135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EatYourSparkOut/pseuds/EatYourSparkOut
Summary: When Deadlock is ordered to quarantine himself to his room, Ambulon is the unfortunate medic chosen to accompany him. He ends up enjoying himself more than anticipated.
Relationships: Ambulon/Drift | Deadlock
Comments: 33
Kudos: 170





	Fever Pitch

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kibahshi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kibahshi/gifts).



> I wanted to write quarantine fic, but I also didn’t want to take it too seriously with everything going on so please enjoy this sex pollen.
> 
> Mild dubcon because Ambulon has ethics and baggage, and Deadlock has 0 boundaries and a raging medic kink. Also sex pollen.
> 
> This is incredibly tropey and cliche and I don’t care one bit.

“I want that one”.

Ambulon’s fingers tighten around the filter he’s holding, frozen in the act of assembling one of the kits they’re going to need to deal with the infestation Deadlock’s crew has carried back with them. It hasn’t hit the base hard—yet—but it’s only a matter of time if they can’t get everyone into isolation, and quickly.

Deadlock being here—instead of locked in his quarters—is a problem. Deadlock pointing at _him_ is an even bigger problem, and Ambulon forgoes his subtle attempts to eavesdrop in favour of full-blown staring. Deadlock stares right back; his mouth curls upwards in a knowing smirk, just a hint of fang playing at the corner of his battle-scarred lips. 

Whatever Deadlock knows, it’s not something Ambulon is interested in. Deadlock is better off avoided, if you like all of your extremities attached and in working order. He likes to play _games_ , and Ambulon knows that whatever the board, he’ll come out the loser. 

It takes everything in him to keep his shoulders from hunching defensively, and to force his optics back to the task at hand. Neutral. Non-threatening. He can’t keep his optics from flitting upwards every couple of seconds, though. The stakes are too high, and it’s hard to focus on work when you’re the prize. 

Flatline doesn’t even throw Ambulon a glance. He crosses his arms, and stares down at Deadlock with the steely look that he wears on-shift—so different from the warm, easygoing mech that plays cards with them off shift, and swaps stories about the most outlandish interfacing injuries he’s ever had to treat. It takes a lot to rile Flatline up, but Ambulon knows that the look he’s directing at Deadlock now has the stopping power of a tank. 

Deadlock doesn’t look cowed. He looks dangerous. 

And he’s one of Megatron’s golden boys, which means no amount of resistance—not even from the army’s CMO—is going to keep him from getting what, or who, he wants. 

That doesn’t mean Ambulon doesn’t appreciate the effort. It makes him feel warm to his core, like maybe after being shuffled around for so long—unremarkable grunt, failed experiment—he’s finally found a place that wants to keep him. 

He’s gotten his hopes up before, though. 

“Ambulon is still in training,” Flatline rumbles. “He needs to stay here under the supervision of the other medics. If Megatron insists on indulging you, I’ll attend you myself.” 

While the rest of his crew is being shuffled into medbay as quickly as possible for quarantine—alongside anyone else they’ve been in close contact with—Deadlock is insisting on _personal_ monitoring. The kind that involves accompanying him to his room. Ambulon has heard enough about the bounty hunter’s proclivities to make some solid assumptions as to what for. 

Deadlock leans into Flatline’s space, every centimetre of him screaming _threat_. 

“I’ve already _had_ you, guns. I want that scrawny little cog. You’re short on full medics, and he looks quick on his feet. I’m sure I’m nothing he can’t handle.”

Ambulon has his doubts on that front, and they’re growing by the second. 

“Consider it on the job training,” Deadlock says, “and be grateful I’m willing to tap some of that _potential_ for you.” Deadlock looks up again, and Ambulon can feel his optics sweep across his frame, hot and assessing. “You can have him back tomorrow.” 

The displeased rumble of Flatline’s engine makes it clear what he thinks about _that_ , but Deadlock’s hand is twitching towards his subspace, and apparently Flatline draws the line at being shanked for him. 

“Fine,” he relents tightly. “But I’d better get him back _exactly_ how I sent him off. Don’t test me, Deadlock; I don’t have time to patch up another one of your messes.” 

Ambulon doesn’t blame him; he knows Flatline’s got bigger things to worry about. There’s a virus to contain, and at least two more shipments of injured mecha due in later today. The last thing they need is the two of those combining. Especially considering the nature of the contagion. Ambulon’s never seen a mech missing his lower half try to frag, and he doesn’t want to. Too many images of spikes going into holes that hadn’t been there before. 

Ambulon hears a crack, and realizes that he’s gripping the replacement fan so hard that he’s snapped one of the blades. He eases up, gingerly placing it away from the others. Thankfully, they’re not running low. Yet. 

Flatline appears in front of him, a wall of dark plating creating a comfortable shield between Ambulon and the looming threat. 

“Listen,” Flatline begins lowly, and his voice is eons warmer without an audience to front for. “I’m not going to say he’s all bark and no bite, because that would be a lie and I’m not in the habit of sending my medics into situations underprepared. But Deadlock is… complicated. Keep a steady head on your shoulders and you’ll be fine. Don’t push your luck, but don’t just roll over and do whatever he tells you either, alright?”

That’s easy for Flatline to say, with his CMO position to keep him relatively secure. He’s _valuable_. Most mecha wouldn’t blink twice if Ambulon vanished. 

Still, faced with the prospect, Ambulon finds himself more weary than scared. 

He nods tiredly at Flatline, and receives a hearty thump on his shoulder for his efforts, one that almost sends him stumbling. 

“You’ve got my comm. Don’t hesitate to use it if you find yourself in over your helm”.

“Sure.” Assuming it wouldn’t be too late by the time he made that call. 

“I’m serious. Nothing you don’t want to do.” 

Hrm, like he’d have a choice. He respected Flatline’s optimism, but it wasn’t made for mecha like him. 

“I got it, thanks.”

Ambulon grabs one of the kits he’s assembled and walks over toward Deadlock with a confidence he doesn’t really feel. He’s spent enough time as a ‘Con to know better than to let his apprehension show on his face, and when he speaks he keeps it firm, but brief. 

“Right. I’m Ambulon, and I’ll be your medic until things are under control again.” _And not a second longer,_ he thinks. He’s determined to be as uninteresting as possible, as much as that means Deadlock will just move on to someone else. He can’t afford to feel guilty about it. 

Deadlocks grin widens, dark and self-satisfied. He looks like a cybercat that’s got the cream. He looks like he definitely bites.

“ _My_ medic,” Deadlock purrs. “Well, aren’t I lucky?”

That makes one of them. 

___

If Deadlock is the cat, entering his quarters makes Ambulon feel all the more the mouse. 

He’s antsy, unsure what to expect. Deadlock has a reputation. Several, in fact. If he decides he doesn’t want to submit to treatment, wants Ambulon to _submit_ instead, well—he’s not actually sure what he’ll do. Flatline had told him to call, but as hopeful as Ambulon is about his new cohort he knows his fellow medics won’t always be there to defend him. Decepticons have to fend for themselves. 

He walks stiffly over to the only table in the room—a crowded desk—and almost places his things down before he remembers that maybe he should check with Deadlock first. To call him _territorial_ would be an understatement. Ambulon had once seen him use a freshly severed hand as a drink cozy, after the mech in question had tried to take his energon.

Deadlock shrugs at his glance, which Ambulon figures is as good a permission as any. He clears a space to dump his things—brushing aside more knives than any one mech needs—and then takes a look around the room. 

It’s not as big as he would have expected, for officer’s lodgings, and it’s made smaller by the clutter that’s crept over every available surface. Half of it looks like junk picked up on other planets. An assortment of discarded cubes litters the ground. And Ambulon can see a magazine—dubiously titled “Bolt Action”— peeking out from under one of the blankets that’s fallen out of the nest piled onto Deadlock’s berth. 

Deadlock is hot. He’s scary. And he apparently lives like a mech fresh out of the academy. 

“Nice, huh?” Deadlock asks, and Ambulon assumes he’s referring to the room at large, and not Double Tap’s scandalously mounted gun rack.

It’s a trap if Ambulon’s ever heard one.

“It’s got, um. Character,” Ambulons says, and then tacks on a “...Sir.” for good measure. Medics can get away with fudging the ranks a little, but he’s already treading on dangerous ground. He’s in Deadlock territory, and it’s safer to play by the rules. 

Deadlock, who evidently wastes no time. Before Ambulon can blink, he’s pressing forward—moving into his personal space with brash confidence and the usual swagger.

Ambulon backs up against the desk on instinct—nowhere to go—and Deadlock leans in, tightening the cage. Ordinarily Ambulon wouldn’t complain about the eyeful of sleek, dark plating and strong cables, but he’s not comfortable with any of this. Deadlock moves too fast, too forcefully, and it dries up any of the charge he might’ve felt otherwise. 

“You can drop that,” Deadlock murmurs, and he’s close enough that the words ghost across Ambulon’s audial, low and inviting. “‘Sir’ is so formal. Wouldn’t want it to get in the way of us getting to know each other.” 

Deadlock’s mass is crowding him, buffeting Ambulon with hot air as his fans cycle up, and it’s making it hard to think. His thigh slides firmly between Ambulon’s legs, pressing deliberately against his panel, which triggers an uncertain ping from his systems. [Open y/n?]. And—how did he lose control of this situation so fast? 

Ambulon musters the thin dregs of his courage. He can still salvage this. He just needs to deflect Deadlock’s attention so that he can do what his duties require of him, and ideally, survive the night. 

“I’m not fragging you,” he blurts out instead. 

Dead silence. 

“Sir,” Ambulon adds faintly, as his short, unsatisfying life flashes before his optics.

Deadlock looks so flummoxed that all of Ambulon’s panic almost escapes him in a nervous laugh. His expression is consternated, like he’s never even considered the possibility that someone might not _want_ to frag him. Ambulon waits, with locked up struts, for the confusion to blossom into rage, but instead it simply morphs into something doubtful. And then, to his surprise, Deadlock backs off.

“If you say so,” he snorts, disentangling them. 

Ambulon draws in a deep vent. His fuel pump settles, returns to thumping at an almost normal rhythm. He’s a medic—or at least, he will be. He can handle this. 

“I’m here in a medical capacity,” he says, the consummate professional, and not at all perturbed by the way Deadlock gaze lingers on his hands, his chevron. “And while what you’ve been exposed to isn’t serious, it’s my job to make sure you’re functioning at optimal capacity. So, why don’t you take a seat on the berth?”

“Gotta say, I’m getting mixed signals, doc,” Deadlock drawls. 

The wave of exasperation Ambulon feels annihilates almost all of his lingering apprehension.

“So that we can run another _test_ ,” he says. “The nanites take time to replicate, and it’s possible that they’ve had time to colonize your systems since we took the first one. Even if you’re asymptomatic, you could be contagious.” 

And he won’t be asymptomatic for long if that’s the case. 

“You don’t seem too worried about that.”

“I’ve got the immunobots,” Ambulon explains. Courtesy of a previous infection that he’d rather not remember. Deadlock doesn’t though, and unfortunately limited time and supplies means that they’ve only managed to synthesize a couple treatments so far. 

Deadlock stolls over to the berth, and Ambulon tries his best not to _look_. He might not be a fan of the mech in question—or his methods—but tragically he’s not immune to the smooth power housed in Deadlock’s frame, or the way his armour hangs down either thigh to frame his aft as he moves. 

He’s distracted enough that he accidentally kicks something as he follows suit. He looks down, and squawks when he realizes its a _gun_ , just lying there—and now pointed straight at his foot. It’s not one of Deadlock favourites, clearly. Those he keeps polished to a sheen, and mounted close at hand. 

“ _Please_ tell me that’s not loaded,” he says. Surely the gunslinger wouldn’t be so careless as to leave a hazard like that lying around with live ammunition inside. 

“Eh. Could be.” Deadlock doesn’t seem all that concerned, and Ambulon concludes that command is staffed by trigger-happy lunatics with no regard for their own self-preservation—confirming what he’s suspected all along. 

Ambulon’s despairing gaze slides right off of him. He pats his thigh instead. 

“Come on, Doc. _Examine_ me.” It sounds facetious, but there’s an undercurrent to Deadlock’s voice—an edgy arousal that suggests he hasn’t given up yet. 

Ambulon sighs, and resigns himself to a long night.

Deadlock is surprisingly docile as Ambulon gathers the samples he needs, and runs through a few additional systems checks. Someone’s already patched up the damage he took on the mission—almost all of it superficial. Ambulon suspects that Deadlock is a hard target to hit, and not one that leaves you alive for long after. 

He doesn’t seem to mind Ambulon’s hands on him, despite most mechas’ tendency to tense up under an examination. In Ambulon’s experience, ‘Cons don’t like to be touched. Though, as far as he knows, Autobots don’t either. Maybe it’s just the war; he’ll have to ask someone who wasn’t born into the thick of it. 

Deadlock’s field—usually plastered to his frame, has gone kind of soft—and his engine purrs contentedly in the silence. It goes a long way to putting Ambulon at ease. At least, until he speaks up in a low rasp. 

“Your bedside manner could use some work.”

Ambulon wants to bristle, but despite Deadlock’s _suggestion_ that they drop the formalities, he’s still his superior officer—and well within his rights to punish him if he mouths off. 

“Guess that’s why I’m still in training,” he says mildly. If nothing else, it means his plan to be as dull as possible is working. With any luck, Deadlock won’t request him again. 

Deadlock grunts, seemingly too pleased with the attention he’s getting to comment. Deadlock is weird, Ambulon decides. He’s weird, and he’s got weird kinks, and he’s not going to frag him, even if the noise calls to mind other scenarios where he might get to hear it. 

Ambulon finishes up, and runs the samples through the scanner he’s brought. 

“Well?” Deadlock asks. 

“Hm. Negative.”

“Huh.”

“You sound disappointed,” Ambulon notes, but he can’t say he’s entirely surprised. This is one of those that mecha have been known to infect themselves with on purpose. After all, a virus that continually cycles your charge and enhances your interface drive _sounds_ like a good time, right up until you’ve hit your fifth overload with no relief. 

“I mean, that’s not really the _fun_ answer, is it?” 

“Trust me,” Ambulon deadpans. “It really is.”

“Right,” Deadlock drawls, and he shouldn’t be able to make one word sound so incriminating, but he does. “You’ve already met. Bet that’s a fun story; care to share?”

“I’d... rather not.” It hadn’t been particularly fun. He’d caught it on his first shore leave, and rode it out alone in his quarters—too overwhelmed by charge-hungry nanites and too embarrassed to seek out a medic until it was over. 

Deadlock’s grin is jagged. 

“C’mon, doc. Tell me, or else I'm just gonna have to make something up.” 

“It’s _really_ not your business,” he says. “Uh, sir.” Ambulon knows he’s pushing—exactly what Flatline had warned him against—but he’s tired of walking this tightrope. He’s frazzled, and it’s making him short. 

Something ugly and sharp has taken up in Deadlock’s optics.

“Yeah? Well, maybe I _want_ it to be,” he growls, and this time it takes everything in Ambulon not to flinch as Deadlock grabs his chin, and forces him to meet his burning gaze. 

It’s not Deadlock so much as it is _everything_. He’s eons away, but Ambulon can still _feel_ the weight of Shockwave’s judgment upon him; a clinical servo turning his helm this way and that before declaring him worthless. Months of endured pain flare up in spots on his frame that he knows have healed in the year since. He’s burdened with the stifling awareness of another decision he’s not actually free to make. 

This time, he doesn’t do a great job of hiding the dull horror that’s crept up on him, and Deadlock releases him with a grimace.

He slumps back onto the berth in a brooding, spiky pile. 

“Yeah, whatever,” he mutters. 

The tension in the air is thick enough to cut with a knife. Refusing a superior officer is always a dicey game, and Deadlock could press him into it, if he wanted. But he seems reluctant to push in the face of Ambulons’ reluctance. Mostly, he seems put out that Ambulon doesn’t find his domineering sexy. 

Hilariously, Ambulon _would_ , if things were different. If he didn’t have so much baggage. If he wasn’t a medic on duty. And if Deadlock could find it in him to try asking instead—could he _please_ shove Ambulon down face first into the berth and plow him into next week?

Deadlock _is_ hot, underneath all the posturing and bad innuendo; Ambulon’s just not stupid enough to think its worth it. 

He clears his vocalizer. 

“I’m going to study?” he hedges. 

Deadlock casts him a look that tells him exactly what he thinks of _that_ plan. 

“If you want to waste your time, go ahead,” he says sullenly. “Use the desk; just don’t mess with anything.”

Ambulon tries. He flips through his copy of Rotator Cuffs & You and reviews the treatment for sprains, strains, and misalignments, but it’s hard to relax with Deadlock sulking in the background. It doesn’t help that Deadlock selected his own reading; he’s scrolling through the risque magazine like that’s something you _do_ in public. It lends support to the theory that Deadlock's eagerness to get Ambulon flat on his back isn’t a manifestation of his symptoms, but his usual mode of operation.

Eventually, Deadlock tosses it aside, and Ambulon glances up at his exaggerated groan. He’s in the midst of stretching out across the berth, and the way he’s flaring his armour gives Ambulon a good look at the solid mass of cables sequestered underneath. His optics trace the gap near Deadlock groin, where the wires have stretched taut. 

“See something you like?” Deadlock asks, and Ambulon starts, caught in the act. 

Yeah, unfortunately. 

As far as berth partners go, Ambulon isn’t that sought after. He’s been saddled with a standard, clunky frame, a boring paint job, and a worse altmode than he’d been onlined with. Still, he’s endured enough inexperienced fumbles to know what he likes, and Deadlock ticks all the boxes.

But so does Flatline, and he’s less likely to chew him up and spit him out when they’re done. 

“Don’t you have something to do?” he asks, annoyed at his own arousal.

“You offering?”

Ambulon lets his silence speak for itself. 

Deadlock shrugs and kicks back, crossing his arms behind his helm. He probably knows what it does to highlight the lines of his chestplate. 

“Nah. Fresh off a mission, so usually I’d be blowing off steam,” he says. “But I’m stuck here which means no racing, no guns, and a medic that isn’t exactly accommodating my _needs_ so to speak.” Ambulon gives him a flat look. “And that’s how I spend three-quarters of my time so frag me, I guess.” He snorts. “Or don’t.”

“What about the other quarter?” Ambulon asks, not sure if he wants to know.

Deadlock’s grin widens. “Remember that time Starscream was caught walking around with a purple handprint on his aft?”

Gradually, Ambulon relaxes. The tension oozes out of him bit by bit, as it seems that for the time being, Deadlock is content to regale him with wartime stories. Most of them are too bloody for his taste, but he can tell that Deadlock is trying to impress him—which is bemusing and flattering in its own right. Even if it’s only because he wants Ambulon to warm his spike. 

He finds out that Deadlock keeps a foam blaster somewhere in mess beside his berth, and that he’s got targets lined up in different areas of his room with easily recognizable faces on them. Ambulon spots Starscream and Tarn, among others. Apparently he’d had to swap out his actual pistols for the toy blaster after his neighbors had complained one too many times to Soundwave about holes in their walls. 

Ambulon tries not to find the whole thing cute, because ‘cute’ doesn’t make Deadlock any less dangerous. It just makes it easier to forget that he’s trapped in a room with the ‘Cons most infamous hitman. 

And then, Deadlock starts to fidget. 

He goes silent in the middle of a story, and Ambulon hears his fans start up with a soft hum. 

“Hey, doc?” he says, rougher than before. “You wanna maybe run that test again?”

He does. It’s positive. 

That wouldn’t bode well for him under usual circumstances—a mech overwhelmed by the nanites isn’t always in their best frame of mind, and he doesn’t think that Deadlock’s thin respect for his boundaries is likely to hold out under chemical manipulation—but thankfully, Ambulon’s come equipped for this. 

He rummages through the kit he’s brought, and pulls out the charge conductor—which garners him a suspicious squint. 

“What’s that?”

“It’s a charge conductor,” Ambulon explains. “It uh, hooks up to key points on your frame and routes a charge through it that will destroy the nanites without causing any damage to your systems.”

There’s a moment of silence, during which Ambulon grows increasingly more awkward.

“Didn’t take you for the kinky type.”

“It’s clinical,” he says stiffly, though now he can’t stop thinking about what Deadlock would look like, helm thrown back against the pillow as fifty thousand volts race up his spine. 

“Sure,” Deadlock says agreeably, and then, because his acquiescence is too good to be true, “Keep your toy. I’ll settle for old-fashioned.” 

“ _Old-fashioned_ doesn’t come equipped with a grounding panel,” Ambulon argues, shaking the _medical equipment_ for emphasis. “You’ll fry at least a couple of essential circuits, and that’s if you’re lucky.” 

“I’ve seen worse than a few blown capacitors,” Deadlock says. He seems almost amused. 

“That’s _if_ you manage to overload enough,” Ambulon adds, because he’s going to inform Deadlock of the risks, even if he thinks they’re trivial. “It’s going to be a lot harder with the nanites keeping your charge at a level that’s comfortable for them, and they’ll replicate at exponential levels right before the overload burns most of them out.” He searches for an analogy that Deadlock will understand. “You’re racing against an enemy with every advantage.” 

It’s not an impossible race, but it is a miserable one without help—as Ambulon can attest. The conductor is calibrated to make the process as quick and easy as possible, and to circumvent any possible complications.

“So I’ll win,” Deadlock says. He flops back to the berth, propping himself up against the headboard and bending one leg in an attractive slouch. Then he reaches down to palm his spike panel, and Ambulon’s mouth goes dry. 

“And if you still want to help, I wouldn’t turn down a little _medical_ assistance,” he intones.

“Urgh, that’s not—,” Ambulon starts, and then he pinches the bridge of his nose. “It would be a breach of our medic-patient relationship,” he manages. “As well as the minimal contact order in place .” Not that Deadlock hasn’t already had his hands all over him.

“So tell them you were taking my temperature,” Deadlock suggests, in a voice that implies he's heard that one before. Likely with each of Ambulon’s coworkers. “What’s the big deal?”

“It’s _ethics_.”

“That’s cute.”

Deadlock presses down on his panel, and his groan of relief cuts straight to Ambulon’s array. He’s fixated, as Deadlock pushes down again with the heel of his palm and bites out a curse in a dialect he doesn’t recognize. Deadlock’s not known for patience though, and sure enough that’s his spike pressurizing right into his hand, as sleek and deadly as the rest of him. 

“This really isn’t appropriate,” Ambulon says weakly, one last ditch effort to retain his dignity. 

“No one’s making you watch.”

It’s... true. He needs to monitor Deadlock; that doesn’t mean he’s obligated to stare at the way Deadlock twists his wrist along the end of his spike and digs his heels into the berth, or think about how those rough hands would feel on _his_ frame. 

Ambulon tries looking anywhere else—at the wall, at his lap—but inevitably, he finds himself studying a pair of sturdy thighs, a pair of fangs biting into a scarred lower lip. All of his earlier reservations seem to have flown out the window now that Deadlock isn’t crowding him. If he wants to find out what that spike would feel like—sliding up into the aching space between his legs—it’s entirely up to him. Right?

He thinks that it’s weird he’s gotten so worked up so fast. Deadlock paints a seductive picture, but Ambulon knows that he had arguments against this. Good arguments. It’s hard to remember them over the way his frame has started to buzz with interest. 

Deadlock tilts his helm in Ambulon’s direction, and his optics are a smoldering red in the low light of the room. He licks his lips, and a brief shudder wracks his frame as his pace picks up. 

“Mmm, doctor—I think I could use an expert opinion over here,” Deadlock says, in that gravelly voice that seems to have forged a direct connection to Ambulon’s valve.

There’s a reason, he recalls, that he doesn’t want to become just another notch on Deadlock’s berth, and it’s that he’s sick of being used. Everyone knows that Deadlock liked medics; that doesn’t mean he gives a single scrap about Ambulon. Deadlock isn’t _safe_.

But that excuse is ringing hollow now, with all of Deadlock’s impressive equipment on display. 

Does he really care that much?

Deadlock dims his optics and lets out another deep, long groan, and Ambulon decides that he really _doesn’t_. 

Moments later, he’s climbing into the circle of Deadlock legs, and Deadlock is wrapping his hands around the back of Ambulon’s thighs to draw him into his lap. They settle with his legs slung wide over Deadlock’s, and with Deadlock’s spike rubbing right up against his panel. Even that light pressure sends an electric current rolling up Ambulon’s spine, and the sensation is magnified threefold when Deadlock rocks up against him. 

He clears his throat, trying to shake off some of the fog that seems to be settling over his processor. 

“As your practicing physician, it’s my professional opinion that we try a more… hands on approach to stopping this virus.” Deadlock revs his engine, and Ambulon has to grip the nearest thigh to steady himself as the pleasure rebounds across his frame. 

“Oh, I know where to put my hands, doc,” Deadlock purrs, using his grip on Ambulon’s aft to pull him into another firm grind. 

Ambulon’s panels snap open. His spike is nothing special, but he can tell that the sight of it fully pressurized and already leaking is a stroke to Deadlock ego. His valve isn’t faring much better, especially now that Deadlock’s spike is pressed right against it, nestled comfortably in soft mesh. The next grind puts pressure on all of his exterior nodes, and Ambulon’s valve clenches down on nothing, desperate to draw that feeling deeper. 

“And I think we can figure out something to do with yours too.” 

Deadlock guides Ambulon’s hand to his spike, and he does his best to mimic the quick motions he’d seen Deadlock using earlier. His technique can’t be too bad, because Deadlock jerks against him with renewed interest, and Ambulon’s nodes reap the reward. And then Deadlock shows him one of the benefits of his medic-hopping hobby, and that’s that he _really_ knows what to do with the hands. 

He licks a stripe up Ambulon’s other palm, and the heat streaks through him, unexpected and all-encompassing. Ambulon hasn’t quite acclimatized to his new sensors, so even though he’s only got them turned up a bit more than halfway, he feels every micrometre of Deadlock tongue rasping against his fingers.

“That’s,” he gasps, “not going to help you.” It’s Deadlock that needs to overload, as much as Ambulon feels needy and out of sorts himself. Any contact with his frame will help ground Deadlock’s charge, but building it for too long without release is counterproductive to their goal of shorting out the nanites before they replicate uncontrollably. 

“Says who,” Deadlock mumbles, before doing it again. Ambulon shudders, and as best he can, presses his leaking valve against the spike he’s got cradled between his thighs. He doesn’t have a lot of leverage, but Deadlock helps, using his grip on Ambulon’s aft to roll their arrays together, over and over until every one of his nodes is throbbing. And then Deadlock is pulling one of his fingers into the warm, wet bliss of his mouth, and the heat building in his belly climbs to an inferno. 

Ambulon is burning up. His sensornet is on fire, and he needs—he needs—

He remembers this feeling. 

Ambulon opens up his commline in a daze. 

[Flatline? I think it’s mutated since strain X62]  
[Yeah, we know. We’re working on synthesizing some sort of countermeasure before we’re all out of commission. You holding up?]  
[I’m—] Deadlock traps the finger between his upper palate and tongue, _rubbing_ , and Ambulon has to bite off a moan.  
[Uh huh. Yep.]  
[So long as you’re enjoying yourself.]

Deadlock takes a second finger alongside the first, and when he presses on them with the flat of his tongue and sucks, Ambulon loses whatever’s left of his composure. He jerks into an overload, unexpected and fierce, and Deadlock uses the lubricant that gushes forth to rut against him until he’s shuddering and snarling into one of his own. 

It barely takes the edge off, which is further confirmation as to his infected status.

“The virus, it’s new,” he informs Deadlock, somewhat breathlessly. “I’ve got it too.”

Deadlock gaze, already murky with arousal, darkens further. 

“Well, lucky for us both then,” he growls, and rolls them over so that all of his mass presses Ambulon into the berth. His valve bemoans the loss, but Deadlock’s hands are running appreciatively up his thighs, and the trailing claws are another titillation. 

“We should—” Ambulon manages, “—we should keep track of our temperatures.” They need to gather any data they can, especially in the event that this is a strain that they won’t be able to burn off by fragging. Primus, he wants to try though.

“Yeah, sure. Why don’t we start with internal?” Deadlock breathes against his audial, and then he presses a knuckle against the slick opening of his valve. 

Ambulon appreciates Deadlock being mindful of the claws, and appreciates him more when he seeks out his anterior node with lethal precision, rolling it over his thumb. He can’t even be embarrassed as more lubricants spill out to coat Deadlock’s fingers and the berth.

“Mmm, and you had me convinced you didn’t like me.”

That’s a loaded statement, and not one Ambulon has the processor for at the moment. 

Deadlock spares him from answering, opting instead to duck down between his thighs and lick him open. This time Ambulon doesn’t manage to swallow his moan. Oh Primus, if Deadlock wants him to like him, he just needs to keep doing _that_. 

Deadlock holds his hips steady as Ambulon tries to jerk into that questing tongue. It’s doing an admirable job of laving at any nodes within reach—circling and pressing against swollen sensors until he has to stuff a fist into his mouth to muffle his moans. That doesn’t help of course, and between Deadlock eating him out like a mech deprived, and the feeling of his own teeth against his oversensitized fingers Ambulon overloads again with a thin whine.

Overloading isn’t supposed to be this easy—with the nanites regulating his charge—but then again, it’s a new strain, and last time hadn’t come with the added benefit of Deadlock’s apparent oral fixation. 

He’s still coming to his senses when Deadlock slides into him, hilting himself with one, smooth thrust and igniting every sensor along the way. Ambulon lets out a choked gasp as the last waves of his overload spiral up into new heights, and he grips Deadlock arm for stability as he starts to rock, firmly, relentlessly into him. 

“I think your treatment plan is working,” laughs Deadlock, low and dirty.

“Mmm,” Ambulon agrees, barely parsing the words. He’ll agree to almost anything right now. 

He catches Deadlock's fierce, lubricant-smeared grin, and the sight of it only makes his spark spin hotter. Deadlock picks up the pace, and the way his spike spreads Ambulon’s calipers, igniting rarely touched nodes sends repeated shocks of pleasure through him. They spark, swelling with charge that dispenses across his frame in sweet little bursts of electricity. 

Deadlock frags him hard and fast and _thorough_ , but Ambulon has no complaints; he hangs on, wrapping his legs around Deadlock solid waist. 

“Nng, Harder.” If they’re doing this, he wants to do it so well he’ll feel it for days. 

Deadlock engine turns over. He drives into Ambulon with a force that makes him see sparks, and _Primus_ , that’s better. Deadlock’s been doing a good job of pretending the nanites don’t have him in the same, brutal grip, but now his desperation is palpable—as he overloads with a snarl and keeps going. Ambulon’s head tips back against the pillows in a wordless gasp, the transfluid acting as additional conduction for the electricity arcing across their frames. 

Deadlock pulls out abruptly, and Ambulon has half a mind to snap at him—halfway to another overload, his survival instincts have apparently shorted out with the rest of his processor—but Deadlock just flips him over onto his knees and then he’s too busy moaning, soft and staticky, into the pillow as Deadlock presses in again.

At this angle, the spike pushes achingly deeper, and the stretch of him sinking to the base makes Ambulon clutch at the berth. The soft tarp scratches against his hands and his spike, driving his charge even higher. Deadlock resumes the hard pace from earlier, wrapping an arm around Ambulon’s midsection and bearing down until his frame jerks with every thrust. He’s glad there’s enough bedding to muffle the litany of ‘more’, ‘harder’, and variations on Deadlock’s name that spill from his feverish processor. 

“That’s right,” Deadlock grunts against the back of his neck. “Aren’t you glad you got to be my medic for the night?” Ambulon catches the keenly possessive edge in his voice—alarm bells ringing faintly in the back of his processor—but he can’t bring himself to care about the danger in his current fugue, not when Deadlock spike’s is filling him up so perfectly, hot and heavy against his mesh. Something twists inside of him, throbbing and ecstatic. He’s so close again, all he needs is—

Sharp fangs meet the back of his neck, scraping against the cables and sending a soft thrill through him. When Deadlock bites down harder, on the verge of breaking through, and definitely hard enough to bruise, Ambulon cries out into the pillow and catapults into another spectacular overload.

His calipers twitch and grasp hungrily at Deadlock spike, and it’s enough to pull the other mech with him, fans roaring and moaning low into Ambulon’s audial. Ambulon collapses strutless, his knees giving out beneath him. The exhaustion is starting to set in, but already he can feel a new wave of charge crackling across his sensornet—muted, compared to what they’d begun with, but unmistakably present. 

“Really—again?” he asks tiredly.

“Again,” Deadlock confirms. Ambulon can almost hear the fragger’s smirk. He wonders if this will qualify as sick leave. Does he have sick leave?

And then Deadlock shifts—spike still throbbing, teasing the adjacent nodes to attention—and Ambulon doesn’t think anything for a long while.

___

Deadlock is a cuddler, as Ambulon finds out. 

Decepticons don’t _cuddle_ , in his experience, but he’s not going to be the one to tell Deadlock that—it feels like the kind of thing that will lose him a finger—so he leaves it be and just lets Deadlock wrap an arm around him. He can’t really complain about the warm, firm press of another frame against his back; it’s nice.

His damage report comes back with predictable results. He’s blown a few capacitors. One of his fans has all but given up, and some of his wires have been stripped, so those are going to need fixing by the end of tomorrow. Everything aches, but that’s not a surprise, especially since he’d asked for it.

“Send me your diagnostics,” he says aloud, because as cozy as Deadlock’s being right now Ambulon doesn’t think the mech has warmed up enough to be open to a hardline. Deadlock grunts, and a moment later Ambulon is rifling through a comparable report. Deadlock will need that headlight replaced at some point. 

Ambulon is pretty sure they’ve burned off all of the nanites by now. When clarity had reared its head—sometime around the fifth or sixth overload—he’d made them top up on energon and coolant, and since then his tests have come back negative. 

“I’ve changed my mind about your bedside manner,” Deadlock murmurs from behind him. “I think you could give the others some pointers.” 

Ambulon hrms noncommittally. So much for not keeping Deadlock’s attention. His sense of self-preservation still hasn’t limped back into existence, so he takes the opportunity to clarify a few things. 

“This doesn’t mean anything.”

Deadlock chuckles. 

“‘Course not.”

“It doesn’t. This isn’t permission for you to start stalking me at work, or—or to give my colleagues the wrong impression.” He’s sick of being defined by his relationships to other mecha.

“Hah. Don’t worry about them,” Deadlock says. “Most of them don’t even make me work for it.” Ambulon frowns at that, not sure whether to take offense. In the end, he just sighs.

“I wanted to be better than that.”

“High and mighty will only get you stabbed around here,” Deadlock warns, and his tone is suddenly less casual, chilly in the warmth of the room. 

“Not better than _them_ ,” Ambulon explaints in a hurry, because the last thing he needs to do is give Deadlock the impression that going to berth with him is degrading. “Just, better.” He knows he’s doing an awful job of explaining himself, and is extra cognizant of the fact that it’s not only Deadlock’s words that have teeth. “Ethics are important,” he mutters, the image of a burning yellow optic seared into the back of his processor. 

Deadlock is silent for a moment, and then he relaxes again. 

“You remind me of someone”, he huffs against the back of Ambulon’s neck.

“Is that good, or bad?

“Yeah.”

Deadlock props himself up on one elbow and mouths at the side of his chevron—the part that wraps around his helm. He’s tired, but the scrape of fangs still sparks a glimmer of interest from his frame. It’s genuine, warm and syrupy instead of the cheap, staticky heat of the virus.

“C’mon doc, how about a follow-up?”

He should really check in with Flatline, he thinks, and figure out how long they’re going to be stuck here. And then Deadlock runs his tongue along the edge of one of the marks he’s left on Ambulon’s neck cabling, and a low tingle begins to spread through him.

Well, maybe one more round.

**Author's Note:**

> Sometimes I write in present tense to flex my writing muscles, but I’m not used to it so please forgive any accidental tense switches XD
> 
> Also, I’m certain that I took some inspiration (especially re: Deadlock’s medic collecting) from The Wrong Side by dragonofdispair, which I highly recommend if you’re looking for more dubious Deadlock/Ambulon content.
> 
> Happy birthday Kiba <3


End file.
